They've Done it! (Again)

To quote all the people I’ve talked to about the Future of Creativity in Singapore… ‘It’s central planning! The problem is central planning!’

Where shall I start? Shiek Haikel really has nothing to say about anything, and the former is way too up your arse, I think I’m so famous in this tiny little town, I can tell grown people smarter then I am how to behave.

Richard and I went to the convention today, and it was terribly disappointing to have some dude up there whom nobody, save the most ‘I’m a complete graphic design groupie’ type of geek, would know, answering questions without first showing us his work. And it was even more ridiculous for the fucking emcee to tell people off when they jeered at the complete ridiculousness of it all. We paid and took the time off to see work and hear about real experiences, not to have someone we don’t know ask someone we don’t know questions that no one else would understand because no one but the someone that has asked the question actually knows what he does. If you didn’t understand that, that’s good, because that’s exactly how it felt like, only it was worse because I had taken time off from school and Richard and paid a hundred bucks for my ticket.

Its such a bloody Singaporean thing really, to have a question and answer session for someone that no one really knows anyway. I mean, if it were Roman Polanski or Baz Luhrmann, that would justify a question and answer section in a conference. If nothing else, it would be cool to know the insider gossip on how hell it really is to make a movie. (although you can be sure it won’t be as interesting as asking David E. Kelly how hell it was to make multi-episode TV featuring an anorexic, depressed, middle-aged lawyer) What did those people asking the questions expect anyway, some sort of formula on how to make contacts and produce good art work? I can answer that – Get off your ass, stop spending all your time trying to be cool and actually do something really cool.

To top it off, both emcees had nothing worthwhile to say, amidst all the fantastic art. In the short periods of time they had to say something worthwhile… (I get pissed off thinking about how much better some other people would have used 5 minutes of complete attention from thousands of young, creative people) all they talked about was… actually, they talked about nothing. But perhaps that’s just the way the Design Singapore Council likes it. Lots of revenues from a big event like that, without immediate cultural and intellectual discovery. It’ll be too fast la.. don’t say anything revolutionary, just keep the kids producing pretty things and keep them buying beanbags and toy robots.

Unbelievable, but here’s a little quiz, does anyone here know why it’s called DesignEdge this year instead of IDN? Because… *drum roll* the government has stuck their fingers once again into something that seemed to be going to become a good thing last year and stuck the DSC up to it and turned it into DesignEdge.

Why the hell did they call the design council in Singapore the DSC, especially since everyone that has ever visited a prostitute in Singapore or anyone that has ever found out that their partners have been sleeping around know very well that the DSC is the clinic for sexually transmitted infections on Kelantan Lane (meaning that I have had partners that have slept around, and at some point have ended up in that clinic as well) There’s something wrong with the people here that give the acronyms to government appendages; it’s not bad enough that we have a Singles Development Unit named after the Single, Desperate and Ugly – our design council has a Sexual Health clinic for its namesake. Tres chic.

Actually, I can’t really judge how much crapper the design festival is this year compared to last years when it was run by IDN only. People I know have said it was crapper, and I must say I am a little bit disappointed with the selection of graphic artists. But then again, that’s a personal opinion, and I’m much less into generic graphic design than I am into real craft skill and originality borne out of an artist being an individual.

In other words, there are graphic artists that are very good at copying other people’s stuff and modifying it to suit them and give it an original voice, and there are graphic artist that spent years sitting outside cafes drawing people and amassing this large toolbox of ability that they then subsequently and/or simultaneously use in their work. And as I have realized, even real life drawing of the same subject is completely different under the pencils of different individuals. There’s absolutely no need to force a style to have a voice, it’s already in everyone of us. Its like the way people walk, its just walking, but yet its possible to know whether someone is a friend or stranger from half a mile away just by that alone.

I’m going to check out the booths tomorrow, and I’m sure they will be pretty decent. I shouldn’t slag it off too much, they have some pretty damn good artist, and Mode2 and Delta are fantastic. The funny thing is, the less name dropping there is, the better the work that seem to come out of the artist. There is nothing more irritating then an entertainer that can’t really entertain but justifies his credit through cunting around with the people that can actually do stuff.

But at any rate, Design Singapore is a way better way to spend the money the government has for ‘cultural’ development than any classical concert at the Esplanade. Allegedly, the people that watch those things are already ‘cultured’ as it is; but I can see why it makes sense, those people have greater spending power then a bunch of young kids who have hands dying to paint cocks on the parliament building. The stuff at the Esplanade doesn’t attract the people that will change the cultural face of Singapore, most of it is as boring as imitation Jalan Kayu Prata for breakfast.

I attended this talk by the dean of our school recently, and he was talking about the merging of ‘high art’ and ‘low art’. And someone stood up and asked if it was believable that the government would fund the arts from a non-commercial point of view. I immediately got the impression that she was suggesting the government fund poncey ‘high art’ involving lots of blank squares on museum walls and films that didn’t have any dialogue or proper music in them.

I personally don’t think funding the ‘arts’ is as important as understanding the concept of being original and bold, and going ahead with design that has not already been tried and tested somewhere else in the world . And I certainly do not see the need to fund things that cannot generate money in themselves, or pay for themselves eventually, in a short run economic time frame. Of course some bigger acts won’t come without the injection of some state money into their arses, and I’m glad they do that, but to me, it is not as important as letting people do what they want, loosening up the OB markers and making the businesss/retail environment easier for these people to get their work out to the public.

***
I’m completely exhausted. The last few days have been hell at End of Term. Time for bed.

xoxox